The Horrors of Oakendale Abbey Report, By: Misty Burke
Discovered Novel: The Horrors of Oakendale Abbey Misty Burke Carver, Mrs. The Horrors of Oakendale Abbey, A Romance''.'' New-York, 1799. Eighteenth Century Collection Online.Gale. Ohio State University Libraries. 10 May 2012. Summary The Horrors of Oakendale Abbey ''is a romance that is extremely complicated with a lot of characters that are all intermixed. The story starts out with news that a woman is coming to stay in the abbey upon orders of Lord Oakendale. Aaron Giles, keeper of the abbey keys, is told to prepare it for the lady. At this point we learn that nobody wants to go to the abbey because of the spirits haunting it as well as the numerous murders that are said to have taken place. They do as they are told and we meet Laura and Mary. Laura is the young girl who Oakendale is interested in and Mary is the lady sent with her to accompany her while she stays in the abbey. We learn that Laura is in the abbey because Lord Oakendale had tricked her to get her into his company and wants her to be his mistress, since he is already married. Laura won’t succumb to his wills and so he sends her to the dreaded abbey to try and get her to have a change of heart. Meanwhile, we learn about Laura’s past life and that she was raised by a French woman but she doesn’t know who her real family is or where she is from, her earliest memories are of an African-American woman taking care of her and then getting taken in by the French couple, the Du Frene’s. She is separated from them on a ship to England and this is when Oakendale sees her and takes advantage of the fact that she is looking for help. While being with the French couple for so many years she meets a man named Eugene who has her heart. They love each other and want to be together but when they start to get close Eugene is sent for to come home and he must obey. He is not heard from again until later in the romance. Next, we learn about Lady Oakendale, the wife of Lord Oakendale. She had a great fortune and her father wanted her married. She was in love with Vincent and wanted to marry him but her father wanted her to marry Oakendale because he thought the match was more suited. She likes the idea of having the title along with her money and so she accepted and married Lord Oakendale instead of being with Vincent. Vincent upset by this makes her feel sorry for him and they end up sleeping together and find she is pregnant. She doesn’t tell Vincent and she tells her husband she is ill and so this allows her to go to a remote location with two of her most trusted people. She delivers the child there and then gives the child to a nurse and goes back to her normal life. While Laura is being held in the abbey she decides she can’t take it anymore and she escapes. This enrages Lord Oakendale and he insists upon finding her and making her his. Throughout the novel Laura discovers all kinds of things in the abbey such as what she thinks is ghosts, eyeballs, etc. While Oakendale is searching for her he learns that Lady Oakendale is dying and upon her dying she admits that she had a son with Vincent and that she was unfaithful. This son is Eugene who has been missing for some time now. He is not just a poor, peasant he is now going to be made heir to the throne by his father Lord Vincent. After this is discovered and everyone is looking for Eugene and Laura word is brought to Oakendale that Laura is the only surviving heir to the Oakendale family and she is his niece. He is mortified by this news and now feels he needs to find her even more. They find Eugene in the basement of the abbey and he is reunited with his father. They then find Laura living with a lady Mrs. Greville whom she met while trying to escape. Mrs. Du Frene ends up being with her as well. Oakendale explains the situation and apologizes and she goes back with him as her dear loving uncle. However, because of the circumstances Oakendale doesn’t want Laura to marry Eugene. She takes care of her uncle and once he has passed and Lord Vincent has passed Eugene and Laura could be together and were. It turns out by the end of the novel that all of the phenomena are explained by grave diggers who use the abbey to store the dead bodies and so this way they can keep people out of the abbey so that they can use it for their business. '''Author Biography' Overall, there is a not a lot of information about Mrs. Carver to be found. Below is the description of where I searched for information about her and what I found and didn’t find. · The author of The Horrors of Oakendale Abbey ''is a woman known as Mrs. Carver. · In the Orlando database I found that she has written 3 other novels as well. · These novels were ''Elizabeth (1797), The Legacy (1798) ''and ''The Old Woman (1800), her most famous novel being Elizabeth. · Next I searched ECCO but nothing was found on the author except two of her works. The Horrors of Oakendale Abbey and The Old Woman. · Then I searched Ebsco Host, I used different databases in this system as well. I searched academic complete, gender studies, women’s studies, and humanities. Nothing came back on any of these databases about Mrs. Carver. · Next, I Searched WorldCat with only one article coming back and it doesn’t say who Mrs. Carver is, but it speculates that maybe it was just a stage name and there was no Mrs. Carver. Though it is unclear who the real author is, there is speculation that Sir Anthony Carlisle is responsible for the works attributed to Mrs. Carver. It is believed that he chose the name Mrs. Carver because he was a surgeon, a carver of meat. · No known birth date or death date for Mrs. Carver. Critics There is very little to be found about my discovered novel The Horrors of Oakendale Abbey. I searched many different databases including Orlando, Academic Search Complete, Book Review Digest Retrospective, Humanities International Complete, Women’s Studies International, and Materfile premiere. I searched all of these databases for the title of my novel as well as just key words from the title and I came back with zero results everytime. On ECCO I had six hits but they were simply my novel or one of her other novels in complete text. Since this didn’t work I decided to search for one of her other 3 books in the same locations. Again I received zero results. For Elizabeth I received some but none with information about the text just about Queen Elizabeth. After researching all of these databases I did finally get one result from searching WorldCat through Ohio State and that result is as follows: Shelton, Don. “Sir Anthony Carlisle and Mrs. Carver.” Romantic texualities. 19 (2010): 54-69 . Prink. This article discusses the “real” Mrs. Carver. Shelton believes that Mrs. Carver was actually a stage name for Sir Anthony Carlisle and believes that The Horrors of Oakendale Abbey ''represents aspects of his life because he believed he was somehow related to royalty. The author believes there is enough evidence in the book to prove that he is the real author and Mrs. Carver is just the name used to protect him. I find this interesting because given the time period this could be plausible. The author makes a pretty compelling argument on the subject. Montague, Summers. ''A Gothic Quest: The History of Gothic Novels. London: The Fortune Press, 1938. Print. Montague argues in this piece of the book that although The Horrors of Oakendale Abbey ''started out strong with the supernatural basically being thrown at the reader it unfortunately dies off and wears kind of thin by the end of the novel. She also argues that she doesn’t think it would have been hard to keep up the pace that the author originally started with. So, she says that although it mimics some authors like Radcliffe it unfortunately fell short from not keeping the same initial pace of the first 50 pages. I actually disagree with her. I wasn’t that interested in the beginning it was in the middle to the end that I found so interesting and that kept my attention. '''What makes this novel gothic?' The Horrors of Oakendale Abbey ''can be considered a gothic novel because of the characters, settings, and supernatural events that occur in the novel. Overall, the major theme that makes the novel gothic is the use of the tyrant man, Lord Oakendale, to try to seduce the young virtuous girl, Laura, who turns out to be his niece. The other major theme that makes the novel gothic is the noble, peasant turns out to be the real heir and the virtuous girl ends up getting all of her rightful inheritance and living happily. · Setting: novel takes place in a haunted abbey, is surrounded by dark woods and paths that Laura is forced to wander through, the abbey is dark and described as having gothic windows, supernatural haunting the abbey, Laura getting forced on a ship alone and separated from her “family” gave a total feeling of being alone. · Characterization: The two main characters Laura and Eugene have unknown births and pasts, servants such as Mary serve Laura and give her support, lower class people tell the stories of murders and ghosts occurring in the abbey, Laura the virtuous girl is rewarded in the end, Eugene being the noble, lower class man ends up being an heir. · Characters: Lord Oakendale – tyrant man who wants to seduce the young virtuous girl even though he is married, won’t stop til he gets his way o Laura – young, beautiful girl who is in fear the entire novel of Lord Oakendale, has no idea about her birth or her past. o Eugene – young, noble man who loves Laura, doesn’t know his birth, ends up being heir. o Lady Oakendale – secretly has an affair with Vincent and it must be kept a secret because she is married, mother of Eugene. o Mary – companion of Laura, there to support her as she needs o Peasant people in the village – talk of the supernatural aspects of the abbey and the fear of going there, make others afraid of the place · Plot: supernatural aspects in the novel are all explained away at the end of the novel, Laura and Eugene are both noble, virtuous people that have unknown pasts and unknown births, no idea where they came from, potential incest from Lord Oakendale chasing Laura who turns out to be his niece, marriages out of convenience and for wealth instead of love. This novel incorporates the lost foundling plot, a plot that seems to be popular in gothic literature. · Themes: Potential incest, unknown birth right, potential danger(terror), supernatural beings, fate (Is is all a coincidence that Laura makes acquaintance with both Lord Oakendale and Eugene? Is it coincidence that she turns out to be Lord Oakendale's niece? Is is coincidence that Laura and Eugene are reunited in the end?) · Point of View: The story is told in 3rd person narrator. Information is given out sporadically throughout the novel, only gives bits of information at a time to build suspense. · Language/Tone: use of the word spirits, murders, abbey, aspect of terror (the fear that she may get attacked by Oakendale if she doesn’t escape), continuous surprises while searching the abbey that cause fear and anxiety '''Other Observations:' · I find it extremely interesting that Wikipedia has a site for The Horrors of Oakendale Abbey ''although nothing has been written about basically ever. However, the site is not correct because it states that the novel is one of horror, not terror. The novel is definitely one of terror. There is constant fear that something may happen but none of the bad things feared actually occurs throughout the novel. · This novel was a little different than other gothic novels due to the fact that not only did the noble, peasant end up getting becoming an heir but the girl did as well. Generally the female get inheritance because she ends up with the male. In this case she inherited her own fortune. · This novel couldn’t have been labeled anything other than gothic. Everything from the beginning of the novel until the end rang true to what I think gothic is. The mysterious supernatural aspect, the terror, the potential incest, an old haunted abbey, etc. There isn’t one aspect of this novel that I felt wasn’t gothic. · Searching through 17th-18th century Burney Collection of newspapers I found mention of ''The Horrors of Oakendale Abbey ''in 3 of them, but it only mentions that it is published through Minerva Press by the author or ''Elizabeth. Nothing detailed. The Horrors of Oakendale Abbey ''is one of the twelve gothic novels mentioned by Jane Austen in ''Northanger Abbey. Bibliography Carver, Mrs. The Horrors of Oakendale Abbey, A Romance''.'' New-York, 1799. Eighteenth Century Collection Online.Gale. Ohio State University Libraries. 10 May 2012. Shelton, Don. “Sir Anthony Carlisle and Mrs. Carver.” Romantic texualities. 19 (2010): 54-69 . Prink. Montague, Summers. A Gothic Quest: The History of Gothic Novels. London: The Fortune Press, 1938. Print.